Humanitarian
by ShinyFab
Summary: His life only came down to choices.


He had volunteered to carry out Bulldog's wishes. After the frak up mission he died on it seemed only fitting that the XO should deliver his final messages to family, friends, lovers. Yet as Saul Tigh stood on the doorstep, bottle of expensive Tauron whiskey in hand, he hoped no one would answer. A moment later, he was faced with trouble. She was petite, blonde, and even though he couldn't get a good look he already knew she had a great ass.

She leaned against the doorway, appraising him with a predatory smile, eyes flicking to the insignia on his uniform. "Why hello there, soldier. What brings you to me?" Her teeth were white and perfect. Saul already knew this meeting was going to change his life. With a matching smile of his own, he held out the bottle to her. For a moment she looked flustered, eyes suddenly wide at the bottle he held and then returning to his uniform. Her smile faltered briefly before reviving.

"Oh," she said, a little breathless. "Of course. Come in soldier." She winked at him.

"Ma'am." Passing close to her in the doorway he found himself in a small, but well furnished apartment. A little too much pink maybe. Carefully serene she bustled past him chatting about glasses, ice while he followed her into the kitchen. "So I guess you knew him then." Glasses clinked onto the counter top.

"He was a damn good pilot and a helluva man, ma'am." She was still, standing in front of the refrigerator with her back to him. The silence and the faint humming of the appliance the only sound between them. Abruptly she whirled to face him with brighter than normal eyes.

"I'm sorry. I didn't get your name soldier," she purred.

"Colonel Tigh. Please. Call me Saul."

"_Colonel_ Tigh. A colonel in the Colonial fleet." A thoughtful expression drifted across her face. "Well, colonel. Let's get started on that bottle shall we?"

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His eyes were heavy from drink. Somewhere, someone was crying softly. It took him a moment to remember where he was and who he was with. Sitting on the edge of the bed she was shaking with strained sobs. Dragging his eyes open finally he stared up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry Ellen. I really am." He sighed heavily. "Marry me." It had come out of nowhere. He was thinking of frakking her again to stop her crying. Marriage hadn't been anywhere in his mind. "Really?" She actually sounded hopeful. "You want me to marry you?" In his many years of womanizing, he had never even accidentally asked one of the many to marry him. 'What the hell. Why not?' he thought. 'Because, you know what kind of woman this is,' a voice in the back of his mind prodded. 'I don't give a frak. I'm frakkin' marrying her.' "Yeah Ellen. I wanna frakkin' marry you." Ellen rolled on top of him, her golden hair haloing her face. For one of the precious few times in the years to come, before he was faced with her obsessive ambition and her affairs more numerous than the kills of the best pilots of the Cylon war, Saul thought he was doing the right thing.

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New Caprica was the best (and worst) thing that ever happened to them. He knew he was too in love with her. Even when he had thought about really, actually leaving her destructive ass Saul knew he wouldn't have gotten far. But somewhere along the line, Ellen had wanted to settle down. Maybe she was exhausted from all of the death, all of the stark depressing reality that slid around the fleet like a giant snake constricting everybody's lives. She wanted to move down to the planet, build a little home, take long walks. Bill's insistence he get on with his life off-ship made the choice to go with her easier. Saul was tempted to think the worlds were ending again she was so Godsdamned excited about it. Jokingly, he let the thought she was replaced by a Cylon tickle him into a little chuckle as she talked to him about the fields around the little city being built. "What's so damned funny Saul? Really." She'd huffed until he'd told her she was just so damned cute and domestic. "I'll show _you_ domestic Saul Tigh." With a wicked grin, she dragged him into a cluster of trees which only made him laugh harder.

Ellen would watch tensely from the back of the tent, her lips pursed with anxiety. He knew it worried her the way he was getting so involved. "The Cylons are already suspicious of you. Don't give them more reason. Please Saul. Can't you just stop?" She was pacing back and forth and driving him up the frakking wall. "Godsdamn it Ellen, I can't just stop. With those frakkin' Cylons in charge. I knew what it meant when I joined the military. Bill will be back for us soon. I can't just roll over and wait for him to come back without a fight. He would want me to fight the Godsdamned toasters and by the Gods I will fight them until the day I die." Ellen switched tactics. "They _will_ kill you. Please, Saul? For me?" He pulled her to him wrapping her in his coat. "I am doing this for you."

He'd laid next to her dead body crying so hard he was practically screaming. Her body was still warm with life. It still felt like her, smelled like her. Ellen was gone though. The resistance couldn't afford to have her alive. Saul Tigh wasn't sure he could afford to have her dead. Sam made it sound like there was no other way. Maybe there wasn't. Saul took small comfort in the fact he decided how she would die – with him. Later, Anders would squeeze his shoulder as he sat watching Tyrol prepare Ellen for burial. They carried her out, covered in a blanket, while Galen chanted some mumbo jumbo to the Gods. Ellen had never been one for religion, but he couldn't stop Tyrol from asking the Gods to take pity on her soul.

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"What about Ellen?" He felt sick. Ellen was dead and he was a frakkin' cylon. Ellen hadn't just died from something incidentally, accidentally human like a car crash or a heart attack. He'd killed her. She had died like so many others - _at the hands of the Cylons_. What a frakkin' load of cosmic crap. Every one of them standing in this room was a Godsdamned Cylon. Sam shot him a vaguely sympathetic glance. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. Ellen was gone and Saul Tigh had nothing left of his humanity. He'd poisoned her. Maybe, he thought, it was better Ellen was dead on New Caprica and not anywhere near him. Knowing deep down where the pit of his heart met his stomach that he was really a Cylon made him want to poison her all over again, this time for his own betrayal instead of hers. Oh Ellen, for all her demanding power-greedy nature, had really loved him. Wanted to betray the entire human race for him. Even frakked another dirty Cylon to help him. "I love you Saul" echoed somewhere out of the long past tearing past him like a freight train. He wanted to scream that it was all a frakking lie. But Ellen had always believed in him. She had died for him and it had to mean something. Turning his good eye on Sam, wishing it would burn a hole in his skull, Saul Tigh pulled himself up straight. "My name is Saul Tigh. I am an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever else I am. Whatever else it means. That's the man I want to be."

He was a Cylon just like them. Like Sam Anders who had told him to kill her. But he had chosen to do it, not Sam. His humanity may have been a lie, but he made all the choices.


End file.
